Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [11]
A big Ti’at was propelled by as many as eight men who bore long, double-sided wood paddles. It could carry perhaps four thousand pounds of cargo. Considering the series of long, perfect point breaks and mellow longboard waves that stretch from Point Conception south to Trestles, it’s difficult to imagine that the best paddlers weren’t adept at surfriding—either for pleasure or survival. When the seasonal swells grew big, they still had to reach shore.
Choosing the correct time to go to Cortes Island would have been essential. A scouting mission would be too dangerous in the spring and summer, when raw northwesterly winds and steep, unpredictable chop were a constant threat. During autumn and early winter, the northwesterlies typically wound down, but smoky easterlies often blew in unpredictably from the mainland, sometimes ratcheting up to gale force. The least threatening window opened during the early winter. This was the time of year the gods hurled huge swells in from the north and west, but once you cleared the nearshore waves, they were easily navigated—provided the weather was fairly benign, and you knew what shoals and reefs lurked on the bottom.
As soon as the Kinkipar chief made a decision to allow a team of his men out to explore the outer islands, he would have asked the shaman to confer with the spirit and animal world. A tea of tolache, made from the flowers of jimsonweed, brought visions of hardship, success, or failure. The powerful deity Chungichnish (a known name of a shamanic Chumash God) was consulted, and a tribal dance held to curry his blessing. With clairvoyance granted by the tolache, the shaman asked the souls of islanders who disappeared at sea to weigh in on the perils ahead. The shaman ordered the party to carry one of the tribe’s wise, surly old ravens. Raven saw the whole world and would alert the mariners to dangers over the horizon. Porpoises were guardians of the world below. It was prudent to ask for their blessing as well. Prayers and offerings begged the winds to lie still and for the sun to shine.
In practical terms, it was a full day’s hard paddle to the first island. The journey called for two midsize boats, each manned with four of the island’s most able watermen—perhaps younger members of the canoe guild, fishermen, and an elder navigator. They would need baskets of fresh water (yop made an excellent, if pungent, waterproof lining), cordage, spare planks of redwood, and a load of dried abalone and vegetable-based provisions to augment fish and crustaceans they’d hook and spear. Since the Kinkipar never saw boats rowing to or from these islands, the chances of meeting people were slim to none. Still, should they encounter angry elephant seals or demons, prized swordfish spears were also loaded.
The islands were low-lying, so locating them from sea level would present some challenge, but Kinkipar understood celestial navigation and wayfinding across trackless water. Their route would be relatively easy because they could triangulate the first island against Sky Coyote and the Guardian (the North Star and Ursa Major). But they would also rely on an innate knowledge of the known velocity of the northerly flowing California countercurrent and the flight patterns of seabirds that followed straight-line courses toward their land-based roosts.
The scouting party departed Kinkipar at sunset on a calm evening. The men were all relentlessly strong paddlers thanks to endless exercise and a calcium-, protein-, and fluoride-rich diet of seafood. Lengthy exposure to cold water, ceaseless northerly winds, and California sunshine were manifesting in a pair of conditions West Coast surfers would immediately recognize: Bony exostoses were growing to close and protect ear canals, while fleshy pterygia spread from the inner edges of the eye toward the pupils. If these men lived long enough, they’d eventually